What we're looking for this month

Writers often ask us what we’re “looking for”. Excellent fiction, of course, but what does that mean? This page is designed to tell you. We’ll update it bi-monthly, so visit again.

What We’re Looking for This Month – November/December 2009

Literary SF & Fantasy

Once in a while literary novels will borrow a science fiction or fantasy trope and, to the annoyance of genre writers, sell better than their more rigorously-imagined and idea-driven cousins.

Two recent examples are The City and the City and The Time Traveler’s Wife. Why do such novels reach a wider audience? Terrific writing helps. Another plus is that such novels present readers with only one speculative element. Most of all, such novels tell primarily a human story.

Here are some literary SF and fantasy novels that we’d like to see:

Earth has been at war for one hundred years. When peace comes, two commanders who were sworn enemies retire in the same town.

In a cursed land where there are nothing but children (who do not age) an adult arrives, bringing with him a powerful magic that will change everyone’s luck but at a price: the children begin to grow up.

A hidden alien among us (he’s highly humanoid) has one chance to go home to repair the damage he caused there. The problem is, he’s in love.

One true wizard lives in our world. Her magic holds together a community of two opposite faiths. One day her magic stops working.

A martyr gives his life to save his country. Ten years later he comes back to life to find that the land he saved has lost the one thing about it that he held most dear.

An historical fantasy in which a young child with a miraculous talent has an effect on her family, and then her village, and then her entire country.

A multicultural SF novel in which two people from warring countries discover a mysterious artifact that will have a profound effect on their history, their present, and their future.